U.S.: Iraq Has Few Organized Forces Left

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, April 3, 2003

The U.S. Air Force general in charge of the air war against Iraq said Friday that President Saddam Hussein's military has "very few organized forces left" and the remnants are being eliminated.

"We are systematically destroying his military," Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his desert command post in Saudi Arabia.

For days, coalition warplanes have been heavily bombing Iraqi forces on the outskirts of Baghdad _ including positions of the Republican Guard, Iraq's best trained fighters _ and hitting command and other military targets in the city itself.

In the meantime, ground forces have been converging on Baghdad and are now at its edge, preparing for what could be the toughest phase of the war: taking the city, where more Republican Guard troops as well as Baath Party militias and armed Saddam loyalists are believed to be dug in.

"If we have to do the urban thing, we're ready," Moseley said. "We don't know yet how it will play out," though he added that "things could be a little slow" in urban fighting.

Of the results of the air campaign, he said: "There are very few organized forces left" in Saddam's military. Of those, "we're not just softening them up, we're destroying them."

Moseley said the Iraqi air force hasn't flown a single mission against coalition planes. U.S. and allied forces have tried to avoid hurting civilians, he said. "We want to be particularly careful," he said. "We have very precise weapons and the ability to target them."

Moseley says his work is akin to organizing a "complicated ballet" with about 2,000 aircraft flying from five Navy aircraft carriers and 30 air bases in a dozen nations, all supported by a force of some 40,000 individuals.

The three-star general is commander of the 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces. As top air commander for U.S. and coalition forces in the Persian Gulf, he's worked at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia nearly nonstop since October 2001.